Mr.
Chairman, friends gathered here today, Agnes
Scott is one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the country, and
I am proud to be inaugurated as its seventh and first alumna president.
I seek your support, guidance, and prayers as we work together for the
future of this college. Today we lay claim to our heritage and prepare
for a new century. I feel privileged to have known all but one of my predecessors.
We salute them and take inspiration from their legacy:

-from
our founding president, Frank Gaines, the boldest of visions, the highest
of academic standards, and a community of Christian character;

-from
James Ross McCain, institutional strength and educational leadership in
Atlanta and beyond;

Agnes
Scott students and alumnae here today also salute generations of teachers-scholars:
Dean Kline, Jane Pepperdene, Kwai Chang, Mike Brown, Penny Campbell and
everyone else. We are better women for having studied with you. Your quality
of teaching is captured well by a famous alumna, Catherine Marshall:

"There
were those shining moments in classes, when mind sparked mind, as if a
spark from a teacher's mind fell on the dry grass of mine, and caught
fire. How well I remember the thrill of that and the intuitive knowledge
that I have broken through to reality." (Sayrs and Cousins, p. 20)

Please
rise and join me in applauding the Agnes Scott faculty.

In
reading the college history, it is perhaps not surprising that it is President
Gaines, whom I never knew, who intrigues me most. The civil war was not
long over. Decatur was a struggling community of only 1700. But Frank
Gaines, a Presbyterian minister from Virginia, had his eye on the future.
In a town that did not even have a public school system, he conceived
a college for women that was equal to the best in the land. President
Gaines and the first faculty set in motion a multi-year plan that led
from the 19th to the 20th century, from a preparatory school to an accredited
four-year college of highest standards.

-Remember
this: in 1907 Agnes Scott became the first college or university to be
accredited in the state of Georgia-before Tech, before Emory, and before
the University of Georgia.

-Remember
this as well: Agnes Scott was the second college in Georgia to have a
Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

Agnes
Scott's first buildings, as well as its rigorous and progressive curricula,
were at the cutting edge. When Main opened its doors in 1891, it was an
architectural masterpiece. The talk of Atlanta, it was technologically
advanced for its time with electricity, running hot and cold water, and
even steam heat.

We
must prepare, as our founders did, for a new century. Will we build as
well for the 21st century as they did for the 20th? Is our vision bold
enough? I returned to Agnes Scott because I believe that Agnes Scott has
a destiny not yet fulfilled. First, we reaffirm our founding legacy-a
liberal arts college for women with the highest standards. And then we
move on to tackle the educational issues of our era. We must be more global
than local, more interdisciplinary, and more faithful to our founding
values. More Global?

Several
summers ago I helped lead a week-long workshop for Japanese and American
corporate executives at the Aspen Institute in Colorado. The course was
on Asian and Western social and philosophical traditions. For almost the
cost of a semester at Agnes Scott, twenty executives explored together
the original texts of Confucius and Plato; Genesis and Lao Tzu; John Locke
and the Meji constitution. Together, we discussed different cultural understandings
of evil, justice, individuality, the family, and society. Their employers
who paid the bill-AT&T, Mitsubishi, the United Nations-recognized two
things that American higher education is still slow to grasp. To be global
is not an option, it is an requirement. Knowing something of the humanistic
traditions of both western and non-western traditions is as important
as economics in today's business world.

To
be more global is to integrate the world into the curriculum, not to assign
it in a separate place. Agnes Scott is ready to do this right. Linguistically,
we have become a national model with our NEH-funded "language across the
curriculum." Ann Roberts, a senior, who works in my office, is a German-Philosophy
double major. She wrote her honor thesis on Kant in German and has just
received Agnes Scott's fourth consecutive Fulbright scholarship. Ann will
study Philosophy in Mainz. We are proud of Ann, her professors, and the
entire program which will lead us into globalizing our curriculum. Last
fall we renewed our exchange agreement with Kinjo Gakuin in Nagoya, Japan.
I am delighted that representatives from Kinjo Gakuin are here today,
Last week I approved a new recruiting plan for international students.
Next year I am committed to working with the faculty in designing and
funding a more comprehensive international study program.

We
are fortunate: the Olympics will jump start these initiatives. The Cultural
Olympiad begins right here in Gaines Auditorium in June. Agnes Scott,
very appropriately, will host An International Celebration of Southern
Literature. And I am proud to announce that Her Majesty Queen Noor of
Jordan will join us when our Dalton Gallery features an exhibit of Contemporary
Islamic Calligraphy from Jordan's National Gallery of fine Arts this summer.

Can
you see what I see? A vision of our George and Irene Woodruff Quadrangle
as a lively and cosmopolitan learning center, a true Global commons?

More
Local?

To
be more global, we must also be more local. We begin here at home with
our identity as women, but not just American women-we are women of the
world. For the Beijing UN Conference on Women reminded us that the issues
are not the "glass ceiling," but health, literacy, economic opportunity,
and all of our children.

Agnes
Scott's new Atlanta Semester program may be the only leadership program
that espouses servant-leadership. The focus is not just on providing internships
or understanding why Atlanta is ranked fourth among American cities in
international trade. Students also study changing concepts of citizenship
for women, minorities, and immigrants. this program challenges all educators,
for leadership alone is not enough. How can we train leaders who will
empower those with whom they live, with whom they work to reach their
full economic potential? We will answer this question more honestly only
when we (administrators, faculty, staff, and students) ride MARTA more
and cross the tracks to Decatur.

Several
weeks ago my husband, George, my daughter, Ashley, and I spent a Sunday
afternoon following the Decatur Tourist Bureau's driving tour. As we wound
through Glendale, Chelsea Height's, Lenox Place, and Oakhurst, well preserved
historic residence communities, I began to understand why people feel
Decatur is such a wonderful place to live. And I became even more convinced
that Agnes Scott and Decatur must work together to improve the urban core
which serves these communities. Agnes Scott occupies a strategic geographical
position. We anchor the south side of Decatur, the county seat for DeKalb,
a diverse area with more than 60,000 people. Here we can truly make a
difference.

Mayor
Wilson, we are excited by Decatur's revitalization and by its potential
as a people's town. We look forward to doing our part. USA TODAY recently
ran a front page article on the quality of life in college towns. Can
you see what I see-Decatur, a college town, Atlanta's hometown, blessed
with a MARTA station; a college town with bookstores, theatres, restaurants,
movies, retail stores, county governance, international trade offices,
and, of course, mosques, synagogues, and churches?

More
interdisciplinary?

More
global and more local, and yes, more interdisciplinary. What will college
presidents say to this fall's entering class, the class of the year 2000?
I would be surprised if most do not centrally affirm the importance of
interdisciplinary learning. We know that our students' minds, our minds,
are being challenged to think across the traditional categories of knowledge.
Interdisciplinary learning keeps us from becoming too narrow or pedantic,
alerts us to questions of significance, and trains us for critical thinking
in the years ahead. Interdisciplinary learning is what a liberal arts
college is all about, more needed than ever in modern society.

Agnes
Scott has strong humanistic and science programs. I challenge us to bring
them together in our curriculum. Let us go forward with our plan to create
an "Atlanta Science Center for Women." And let us do so with the commitment
that it will become nationally recognized as a place where humanistic
inquiry, social reality, and scientific discovery go hand in hand.

More
faithful?

More
faithful. Not easy. Agnes Scott's founders were staunch Presbyterian Calvinists
who believed that faith and learning were inseparable. Today the Agnes
Scott community, like the society in which we live and the world which
we embrace, is far more diverse--religiously, ethnically, and economically--than
the world of late 19th century Decatur. How then can we be faithful to
our founding mission? Let me begin a new conversation about our values.

1.
Let us learn about Christianity, not just as a first century religion
or as a 19th century American religion, but as a living world religion.
Today China, Africa, and South America are the regions where Christianity
is most dynamic. How are those cultures re-interpreting and re-vitalizing
traditional western concepts of Christianity?

2.
Let us remember the Judeo-Christian concept of vocation. We care about
the economic transition from college to career, about preparing our students
for graduate school, challenging jobs, and family, civic, and international
leadership. But from the lives of alumnae I have met, I have been reminded
of a deeper definition of vocation, a calling, "discovering life's work
where our heart's deepest desires meet the world's greatest needs."

3.
Let us evoke the need for balance and reflective contemplation from all
the religious traditions of the world. I was startled recently when Gary
Thompson, President of Wachovia Bank of Georgia, asked me: "How are you
preparing your students to live more balanced lives?" He spoke of watching
the toll that stress takes when his employees try to do too much. A recent
"Sally Forth" cartoon featured Hillary, about 12, consulting her Day-Timer,
unable to find time to play a game with her father. He later muses to
his wife: "We owe an apology to an entire generation of children."

In
a world stressed out by busy schedules and on a college campus with high
expectations, teaching balance is a daunting task. If we can't address
this issue during the college years, who will? Let us take a fresh look
at our schedules and campus life. We will create time for intellectual
synthesis, reflective contemplation, meditation, and the power of silence.

4.
And let us not forget joy. Remembering last night's concert, can you hear
what I hear? A joyful noise! It is, after all, the Westminster Catechism,
that says, "the glory of God is the chief end of all." Let us make a joyful
noise, and let us love one another!

Friends,
we are not yet ready for the 21st century. We must prepare, and there
is not much time. Our work is cut out for us--as women, as a community,
and as a college. We will grow, we will build and we will change. We can
be, as Frank Gaines envisioned, second to none. He believed in destiny,
and so do we. Our foundations are firm. We know where we are going. Our
time is now. We are going for the gold!

Source: A paper brochure
of eight pages containing this speech was sent to Gifts of Speech from
Dr. Bullock's office.